KEEPING ONE COW. OF 



ALFALFA OR 



BY SAM'L c. HAMMER, DOWNEY CITY, 



^' 



I hare lived in Tennessee, in Texas, and now reside in Califor- 

 nia. I have been using Alfalfa for some eight or ten years, and 

 from my own personal care of and attention to this article, I 

 maintain one can obtain more milk the year round from it, with- 

 out change to other food, than from any one thing grown. Be- 

 sides, Alfalfa can be grown at less expense, and is attended with 

 less labor, whether fed green or cured, than any other feed. 



Alfalfa can be grown in Canada, it is said. If so, then any one 

 has the chance to try this wonderful friend to the farmer. Once 

 sown on deeply cultivated land, free of weeds, it is good for ten 

 years, or even more, with us. Twenty pounds is abundant seed for 

 an acre some think too much ; but it should be sown thickly. Let 

 it stand thick, and it is finer and more tender. Where sown 

 sparsely it becomes woody and coarse. It can be cut here as early 

 as March, where mowing and not grazing is adhered to, and it 

 should never be grazed or " staked " (fed off by tethered cattle). 

 From seven to nine cuttings can be obtained from it, and from 

 fifteen to twenty tons of cured hay a year made to the acre ; that 

 is, if on irood land and if the crop fully occupies the ground, and 

 is cut just as a few scattering blooms are observed. This hay 

 must be cured as rapidly as possible, raked in windrows and 

 bunched the second day, rather letting it cure in bunches than 

 in any other manner, to prevent leaves falling off ; then housing 

 or "shedding" it soon as possible, sprinkling salt through it as 

 stacked, to prevent mould. 



Alfalfa needs no top-dressing with fertilizers and manure, but 

 simply a severe cross-harrowing with a very sharp-toothed har- 

 row, bearing the weight of a man. The more the Alfalfa is torn 

 and split up the better it will grow. This harrowing should be 

 done in spring before it commences its first growth. After' grow- 

 ing a few years, the stools project, in many places, above the sur- 

 face of the ground. If an implement could be devised for the 

 purpose of cutting off all these old stalks just below the surface, 

 then seed lightly, giving a *ood harrowing, the plants would be 

 renewed, and would thicken up rapidly, for wherever a stalk or 

 root is cut off, dozens of new shoots spring up in its place. 



However, I advocate a change of diet for brutes as well as man- 

 kind, and therefore take for the family cow a half acre of most 

 excellent ground. I will suppose that one half of it that is a 

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